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Sunday, December 31, 2006 ~ Ck's memories

Erm, I shall not need to do any introduction here, since that will most likely be done under the "profile" section. Why did I choose to blog today? Why did I set up this joint blog between me and the two friends over here? Simply because of the word, "Memories".

Why this title? Because there are two meanings to this title. The first will be obvious, my own personal memories. The second will be my interpretation of the word "Memories". Even though I did blog about memories in my blog before (http://superzhichao.blogspot.com/2006/12/basketball-in-morning-memories.html) , I am still happy to blog about this topic, simply because there are many more things that I would like to comment about this topic.

I shall answer the questions I post earlier first... Why did I choose to blog today? This is because today shall be the day that will always remain in my memory. The day this blog is offically published. And to make it more significant, I choose today, the last day of the year, to show that this memory belongs to the past. Then why did I choose to have this joint blog with my fellow thinkers, Pannie and Tingzi? Because they are people who will always be in my memory.

So, what is memory to me? Memory is something that binds me tightly together with my past, positively and negatively. If I lose my memory, I will lose my contact with my past. But, is this definition of mine accurate? What about fake memories? What do they bind me to? Have you ever realised that there are some memories that were actually fake? Altered? Modified? Sounds pretty scary right? Because somehow, we are who we are sometimes because of our memories, for example:

A rock-climber that is about to climb this particular rock wall is confident because he remembers that he climbed the rock wall before in the past, so to him, the rock wall is an easy obstacle to overcome.

But what if he remembered wrongly? What if he never climbed that wall before? What if, this memory is another person's? Till now, I don't think such cases occur in reality... the idea of transferring memories from one person to another. But, have you all heard of reincarnation? Cases of people still retaining the memory of the past life? Then how does it works?

These are my comments on memories. Yup... If I actually put more questions than answers into your mind, don't worry, maybe my fellow thinkers in this blog will answer them, or maybe there will be answers in my next entry next year. Meanwhile, just let this entry remain as our memories...

- Super_zhichao -

Ck was thinking at 9:51 PM

My turn to contribute my two-cents’ worth. =D

I shall start from some facts about memories in a person with split personality. You might have read this before in my own blog… but I shall elaborate more here.

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a diagnosis described in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Revised, as the
existence in an individual of two or more distinct identities or personalities,
each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. At
least two of these personalities are considered to routinely take control of the
individual's behavior, and there is also some associated memory loss, which is
beyond normal forgetfulness. This memory loss is often referred to as "losing
time". These symptoms must occur independently of substance abuse, or a general
medical condition.
Taken from Wikipedia.

In layman's terms, split personality, like what the name itself suggests, causes a person's character to split into two or more. And more often than not, those different personalities, although contained within the same body and mind, do not really intersect. The different personalities are like, totally different people contained in the same body. They possess different characters, different kinds of thoughts and even totally different memories. Of course, everything will eventually merge into one in the sub-conscious mind.

Is it only true that "forget-me-not"s solely apply to the subconscious mind?

It has always been a controversial topic on whether memories can be artificially modified. In a normal person, I believe there are times when we desire to remember what we like and forget what we don't. However, certain events that happen in life might (or might not) trigger a certain part of the memories that we might have wanted to forget once and for all. Remembering by choice then becomes the choice to remember, but not the choice to forget.

Okay, after reading about multiple personalities and the state of memories in these people, you might argue: What these people remember, is a result of their mental disorder, and not just by 'choice'. Well, from what I have gathered all these days, having a split personality is a result from being too bent on forgetting the 'ugly past'. Most patients have histories of childhood abuse and such, and ultimately end up with a second 'desired' character living within the same body. Of course, the conclusion is not absolute, but while we blame fate for their plights, we should not overlook the choices they have made, to immerse themselves in dreams of revenge or desire, and result in this disorder.

As we steer towards the direction of a "Utopia", would it mean that by burying those memories that are deemed unhappy, we would live a more perfect life and construct an overall ideal society?

But.. we live to learn. If we don't remember the respective ugly pasts, then how are we supposed to move towards the utopia?

Alright, shall stop here before I start overwhelming you with endless questions. =P

-tingzi-

tingzi 婷子 was thinking at 4:30 PM